


when two become one

by okaywhatever



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, basically a sbial inspired fic, kinda enemies to lovers. kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-07-18 13:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16119620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaywhatever/pseuds/okaywhatever
Summary: jungeun asks sooyoung to help her catfish her crush.(aka a fic inspired in sbial)





	1. first

**Author's Note:**

> ok so the other day i watched sierra burgess is a loser and thought it was complete trash but also that there was a lot of lost potential in the relationship of the two female characters and said fuck it i'll do it myself. so this is the result. heavyly inspired on the movie minus all the questionable choices the writers made...hope u enjoy
> 
> also uh don't catfish ! catfishing is...bad

“You’re kidding, right?”

And there it is, the feeling of instant regret. Nothing about this is a joke, and Jungeun would rather die than say the entire thing out loud again…even just thinking about it is already bad enough.

“Does it look like I’m joking?” Jungeun replies as cool as possible.

“Sure, an attitude will help your cause.”

Jungeun feels her irritation increase with each second, and the smirk forming on Sooyoung’s lips only confirms how bad she is at hiding it. “Whatever” She snaps, “Are you gonna do it or not?”

Sooyoung takes a shaky breath and looks thoughtful for such a short moment that Jungeun misses it.

“Sure” She says sounding barely interested in the conversation, “I’ll text you my address.”

Sooyoung walks away and Jungeun is barely able to move as what just happened sinks in on her. Even as she repeats it on her mind the thought sounds ridiculous, so absurd that a dry laugh escapes her mouth; Ha Sooyoung, out of all people, just agreed on helping Jungeun catfish her crush.

* * *

“That’s a horrible idea” Jiwoo huffs, “And I’m ME! I have horrible ideas all the time.”

“I didn’t tell you this to get a moral lesson in return” Not that Jungeun anticipated any other response from her best friend, she was prepared for this to come, but that doesn’t mean she dislikes it any less.

“What else am I supposed to do? Cheer you on about being a horrible person that’s lying to some boy you’ve never met!?” Jiwoo’s voice is uncharacteristically stern, and Jungeun hates it. She understands the other girl is just worrying and rightfully disagreeing with her actions, but can’t she just ignore her morals this one time?

“It’s not like that!” Jungeun fights the defensive tone that wants to make its way through her voice, “I’ll tell him…eventually...Someday. And I DO know him!”

Jiwoo shoots her an incredulous look before speaking, “Seeing him around town with zero interaction between you two doesn’t count as knowing him.”

“You’d be surprised at how much you can get to know someone through text.”

“Clearly not enough if he thinks you are a whole different person!” This time her words get her a pillow smack from Jungeun which, as Jiwoo giggles, manages to break the serious atmosphere that had formed between the two.

Once the laughter settles Jiwoo speaks again, “I just don’t want you getting hurt. This could all blow up in your face, you know that, right?”

And she does. Jungeun knew as soon as Jisung texted _her_ number for mistake and referred to her as “Sooyoung” and she knows every time they speak and the feeling of her heart sinking reappears at the back of her mind. She could have easily corrected him the minute he said the name. Hell, she should have corrected him right when they started texting, but she didn’t want him to lose interest, didn’t want to say bye.

Jisung is nice and sweet and has Jungeun laughing with every conversation they have, on top of that he’s very _very_ cute, and giving up his attention once she had a taste of it had become impossible. So yes, it is her fault to be on this mess but who can blame her…If she has to pretend to be a different person to have more time with him then so be it.

Sure, he pictures Sooyoung while texting Jungeun, but it is Jungeun’s personality the one he is falling for; that has to mean something, right?

Jungeun sighs and puts all her attention back on the girl who’s now looking at her with doey eyes. “I know, Jiwoo. Don’t think I don’t worry too.”

Jiwoo senses her friend starting to get upset and acts immediately, “But hey, it could also have a great happy ending in which he decides that looks and popularity aren’t all and chooses to stay with you and your amazing personality despite everything.”

Before Jungeun could even react Jiwoo shakes her head and begins talking again as she looks regretful, “Not that you don’t have the looks or anything, but who can compete with Ha Sooyoung, you know. She’s like…on model level. She’s probably not even human.”

Jungeun just laughs at the rambling mess that Jiwoo has become all on her own but appreciates the intentions. She falls into the comfort of having mindless conversations with her best friend and pretends Jisung and Sooyoung don’t exist till she’s alone again.

* * *

The air feels heavy and awkward as they sit on the floor of Sooyoung’s room. It is much smaller than Jungeun had imagined. There is a twin bed that takes up most of the room, what’s left of it is cramped with various objects here and there that barely leave any space to move.

“So,” Jungeun finally breaks the silence, “What should we start with?”

Sooyoung barely shifts her gaze from her own hand as she fiddles with her nails, “Let’s start with why me.”

Jungeun just stares in confusion as a very ungraceful (but honest) “Huh?” leaves her lips.

“Why use my face to catfish your boyfriend.”

Jungeun closes the book on her lap and sighs in exasperation, irritated by everything about the girl in front of her, from the way she refuses to meet Jungeun’s eyes while talking -as if she wasn’t even there- to how she’d use her conceited tone to make questions sound as if they were statements.

“Listen, if I’m gonna tutor you, you’re gonna have to start listening to me, cause I distinctly remember telling you already that I did not choose to catfish him, I’m not that awful. He just happened to text me with the wrong impression that it was you. Then one thing led to another and suddenly it was too late to tell him that he was texting the wrong number. And, by the way….He is not my boyfriend” Jungeun takes a deep breath after all the unplanned talking. She had never been one with patience to spare, even less when dealing with Sooyoung since they had never been the friendliest with each other, she just couldn’t help herself.

“Well someone’s defensive…” Sooyoung murmurs, but her tone has a hint of playfulness to it.

Messing with Jungeun is easy, it always has been. The girl seems to be on edge all the time and tends to snap without the need of much effort. Sooyoung knows this and uses it to her advantage. It’s not that she is an easy victim or anything, she’s actually quite feisty and always has something to say back, but that’s what makes it so enjoyable. Other students would just lower their gaze and take whatever Sooyoung throws at them, and that got boring quickly.

With Jungeun though, it is different. Sooyoung knows that messing with her will never leave her feeling disappointed, and her theory had proven itself to be correct after years of the other girl falling for her teasing time and time again.

So, when Jungeun offered her this deal, it didn’t take Sooyoung more than a second to know she’d be saying yes. But, of course, she didn’t let Jungeun know that, she couldn’t let her have it that easy. _“Why would I want to help you” “Do I look like I care about you”_ She’d reply so only to see Jungeun explain herself over and over again. There was no way Sooyoung would miss this opportunity, plus she’s in much need of the tutoring sessions Jungeun offered in return of her help. Sooyoung’s grades have been dropping lately and that is something that she can not allow from herself.

* * *

Later that night, as she’s getting ready for bed, Jungeun’s phone vibrates with the notification of a text message. She _knows_ who it is from (Mainly cause it’s too late during a school night and Jiwoo, the early-sleeper and only other option, gets automatically ruled out by that). She tries to act cool about it and does her best to ignore every muscle in her body that’s telling her to sprint to the other side of the room and check her phone, she really does, but that doesn’t last for more than ten seconds and soon enough she’s laying in bed texting the night away with Jisung once again.

_**Jisung:** wanna Talk?_

_**Jungeun:** aren’t we already doing that?_

_**Jisung:** no i mean like….talk talk. on the phone_

The loudest gasp escapes Jungeun’s mouth after reading that last message that for a second she fears she had woken up the entire neighborhood. Is it normal for her hands to be sweating this much? A phone call shouldn’t be such a big deal but that means revealing her voice and that thought alone is enough to terrify her; what if it gets awkward? What if they have nothing to talk about?

Talking on the phone is already stressing enough for someone as shy as Jungeun but talking on the phone with her crush?! That’s on a whole different level, a level with completely different implications and things to worry about, but also one that means hearing his voice, and maybe that would make it all worth it.

She can feel her heart racing as she hits send.

_**Jungeun:** ah sure! call me :)_

It doesn’t take more than five seconds for her phone to start ringing. A bunch of scenarios run through her head while she watches the screen glow with Jisung’s name written across it, she answers just before it goes into voicemail.

“Jisung! H-hi!” The stuttering was not part of the plan….

“Hello- I mean hey- Hi.” Jungeun smiles to herself as she notices he seems to be just as nervous.

It goes on like that for some time, but in between laughing and talking the awkwardness of the situation wears off after a couple of minutes. Just as Jungeun starts to relax and let the conversation flow naturally, Jisung’s words cause her to tense up once again, “Hey, your voice sounds different than what I remembered.”

Of course...how did it not occur to her that this would come up, she had been a fool for thinking that he wouldn’t know what the real Sooyoung’s voice sounds like, “Ah yeah, the phone, you know…It translates sounds differently” She fakes a cough before talking again, “And I’m kinda catching a cold.”

Jungeun never knew she had it in her to be such a natural liar but these last days had proved the contrary, and she knows it is not something to be proud about but maybe just maybe she mentally congratulates herself for it.

Quickly after that she regains her composure and is able to mindlessly talk with him for almost four hours until they need to hang up to sleep but not before he reminds her of their plans to facetime on Friday. Jungeun had previously managed to come up with various excuses to avoid any form of face reveal, but recently settled on doing one that Friday after Sooyoung agreed on helping her.

That night Jungeun went to bed ignoring the bad feeling on her stomach

* * *

“What’s the point of catfishing a man if you’re not getting money from it” Sooyoung’s voice is so serious that it is actually quite concerning for Jungeun.

“I swear that’s even worse…That’s like actually scamming.”

Sooyoung shrugs, “But no one’s catching feelings, think of it more like some sort of business transaction” Jungeun just stares in astonishment as Sooyoung looks absorbed in her thoughts, “But here…you’re playing with emotions.”

Jungeun hates to admit it but the point made by the girl in front of her is somewhat valid, texting with someone in exchange of money has this unspoken agreement on the fact that both parties are using each other, so might as well throw in another lie on top of that. But in this case…both people involved are catching feelings and both of them will inevitably get hurt once the lie comes to an end. Jungeun knows this so why won’t she stop while she can?

Jungeun’s chest suddenly feels constricted, “Okay, but consider this; is it technically still catfishing if the person you’re pretending to be knows about it?”

“Yes, yes it is.”

Jungeun knew the answer, but that didn’t stop her from asking as an attempt to make herself feel better, “That’s awful, I’m awful.”

Sooyoung hums, “Yes, yes you are.”

Jungeun covers her own face with a pillow and makes a muffled sound that resembles an ‘ugh’.

“But hey” Sooyoung grabs Jungeun’s pillow out of her hands, “I’m awful too. At least we can be awful together.”

As Sooyoung jokingly winks at her, Jungeun can’t help the smile that creeps on her face.

* * *

A loud bang interrupts their studying session, the sudden noise makes Jungeun’s heart stop for a second and she’s sure that one of these days her heart will quit after getting tired of all she’s putting it through lately.

Jungeun’s eyes are wide in surprise as she looks at Sooyoung for an explanation. The other girl just sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose in…frustration? Annoyance? Jungeun couldn’t tell as it was an emotion who Sooyoung, always cool and aloof, had never shown before.

“They’ve arrived” As soon as those cryptic words leave Sooyoung’s mouth the sound of loud banging is heard again. This time it comes from the door of the room which is now wide open as three hectic looking girls, not older than 10, stand in the frame of the door they just kicked open.

It is in less than a flash that the younger girls have strategically spread themselves all over the room, one rushes to jump in the bed, the other one quickly places herself on Sooyoung’s lap as she indiscreetly inspects Jungeun’s presence with curious eyes, and the third one is nowhere to be seen.

The three of them are simultaneously screaming for no apparent reason, and then a fourth voice joins them, “Yeojin get off my bed!” “Yerim you’re heavy! Get off!!” “Stop it, Chaewon!” “Calm down!”.

Sooyoung is not as frantic as any other person in this chaos would be, and the orders she screams seem almost memorized, indicating that this is practically routine for them. Yet, there’s a certain edge to her voice that betrays her assertiveness over the situation.

“JINIE!” Screams exceptionally loud the one in Sooyoung’s lap, “Did you see?! She has a friend!” As she points at Jungeun she fails to obtain the other girl’s attention, who seems too busy jumping on Sooyoung’s bed.

The third girl, finally back on sight, is entertaining herself by rummaging through Sooyoung’s backpack, she can almost fit her entire body in it and Jungeun fears the tiny girl might get lost in there. In what seems like a last-minute decision, she flips over the backpack causing all of its contents to fall on the floor and immediately looks disappointed, “No food in here! Where’s the food!?!”

She looks around for a few seconds and a smug smile appears on her face as she starts to quickly move towards Jungeun’s backpack, however, she’s stopped by Sooyoung just in time, “Don’t even think about it, Chaewon.”

Sooyoung’s eyes soften as she shoots Jungeun an apologetic look, and Jungeun’s heart speeds up a little bit at the kind expression Sooyoung wears, “Sorry about them, school makes them…” She struggles for a few seconds to find the correct word, “…rowdy.”

“And hungry!” Screams the one that apparently can’t have enough of jumping on a bed.

Realization hits Sooyoung’s face and Jungeun sees her face go through a wide range of emotions like never before. During the stage of panic her eyes dart across the younger girls demanding for food, then comes the annoyance accompanied with jaw clenching, and finally, something along the lines of stress as her eyes meet Jungeun’s once again, “I forgot to cook them lunch.”

Three loud gasps fill the room and before any of the girls, Jungeun included, could react, Sooyoung is already standing up and walking towards the door, “I’ll make them something quick, do you mind?”

Jungeun just manages to shake her head and rushes to follow Sooyoung out of the room, the three kids behind them cheering at the promise of food.

* * *

Jungeun offers her help which is well received but that’s as far as her good intentions take her; the restricted kitchen space and lack of culinary knowledge she has to offer leave her feeling more like a burden than extra assistance.

Sooyoung however, moves like a pro, one could almost say gracefully; but who wouldn’t  after years of doing this almost on a daily basis.

Jungeun resorts to only pass her some utensils here and there and maybe slice a vegetable or two.

As lunch is served everyone is too busy eating to talk, Sooyoung is once again multitasking, almost by inertia, as she consumes her food while making sure none of the kids choke on the food they are absorbing at a ridiculously fast pace.

The dinner ends with no casualties, and it almost feels like a miracle.

“I’m sorry about this” Sooyoung speaks as she passes Jungeun a recently washed plate for her to dry, “We lost a lot of time”.

“Don’t worry about that, I understand.”

But she doesn’t, she’s just trying to. She has no idea what taking care of three kids that depend on you for everything would be like. Jungeun can barely manage to prepare herself anything that isn’t instant ramen or cereal with milk, so she can’t even begin to comprehend the idea of having to cook something nutritious every day of the week and convince three young girls to eat it.

She had almost gone crazy in those five minutes that she had to spend with the girls in Sooyoung’s room and after that traumatic experience she could not find any reasonable explanation as to how Sooyoung hadn’t been driven into madness by them yet...Or maybe she had and was just good at hiding it, maybe that would explain her -for lack of a better word- bitchy behavior at school…but Jungeun doesn’t want to speculate.

“I didn’t know you had sisters” Jungeun says curiously.

“Why would you.”

“Right” Jungeun goes silent after that and then feels Sooyoung’s eyes practically burning the side of her face.

Sooyoung sighs, “What I meant was….I deal with them enough at home to be talking about them on my free time.”

Jungeun hums as a response, “Do you always cook for them?”

Sooyoung nods and Jungeun sees it out from the corner of her eye, “On Sundays I don’t, though. It is my mom’s day off. Lucky for me, I get off school before them, so I have time to cook. Maybe we can find a time in which it doesn’t clash with our studying.”

Jungeun shakes her head fervently, “This schedule’s okay. I can help you with them.”

“You don’t have to, really. I can manage, I have for years.”

“I’m helping.”

This time Jungeun only notices the raised eyebrow on Sooyoung but fails to catch the soft blush that forms in her cheeks and pays no attention to how delicate her “thank you” comes out.

* * *

“I didn’t think it’d hurt that much” Jiwoo said as she chewed on her food, she took the lack of response as a cue to continue talking, “I think I actually shed a tear and-”

Jungeun doesn’t even seem to notice the halt in Jiwoo’s speech, “Hey, I’m telling you a very tragic story of how I had to uninstall animal crossing from my phone and you don’t seem to be listening at all.”

“What?” Jungeun finally directs her attention to Jiwoo after having a question shot her way.

Jiwoo just squints her eyes, finally understanding the situation, and sighs, “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I’m just nervous. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I’m facetiming with Jisung later. Well not me but- you get what I mean.”

Jiwoo snorts, but the concern in her voice is clear as she speaks, “And what worries you?”

Jungeun gives her a stare, shouldn’t it be obvious?

“Well,” Jungeun hisses, “Not only the terrifying thought of how bad this could go but also the having to deal with my lies in a more physical and face to face kind of way!”

It sounds overly dramatic but she doesn’t care. Suddenly this feels like too much for Jungeun. Having to go this far to keep up with her lies just makes her feel wrong and like a horrible _horrible_ person. While lost in her thoughts, she finds herself considering that maybe this going wrong would be the _right_ thing, at least that would put an end to this mess without her having to take the initiative.

“You worry too much! Everything will be fine” Jiwoo’s cheerful tone brings Jungeun back to their conversation, “Just ignore your morals. Maybe you can ask Sooyoung some tips on how to do it” She adds as a second thought with a smirk on her lips.

 Jungeun rolls her eyes at her friend’s attempt of distracting her from her thoughts, “Shut up, she’s not that bad.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

* * *

They’re eating directly from a box of cereal that Sooyoung would feed the kids whenever she felt too tired to cook. It is practically pure sugar compacted into tiny colorful rectangles, but Jungeun and Sooyoung are both in need of the energy kick they’ll get from it.

They had decided to give up studying for that day and opted to just lay on Sooyoung’s bed till the time of the video call came.

“Are you nervous?” Sooyoung’s voice is calm, Jungeun envies it.

She doesn’t even know where to begin with that question, with her lack of patience the anticipation of waiting for today’s event for almost over a week had been eating her alive, especially today. She could barely think about anything that wasn’t this, and how it would go. Lying down with Sooyoung while they waited hadn’t done much to calm down her nerves.

Sooyoung had been able to tell almost immediately, she sensed the anxiety on the girl from miles away. For the entire day, Jungeun had been uneasy and absent-minded towards everything that surrounded her, Sooyoung included. Multiple times she tried -and failed- to establish eye contact with the girl with the intentions of asking her if she was okay.

Sooyoung notices that even now Jungeun struggles to meet her eyes, and instead looks down to her hands or anywhere else.

“Does it show?” Jungeun finally murmurs.

“Mhm” Sooyoung nods, “You kinda suck at pretending.”

Jungeun awkwardly nudges her on the side, struggling to move well while being surrounded by pillows, “Shut up.”

Sooyoung lifts up her torso and leaves one hand on the bed for support, she shifts towards Jungeun and extends the other hand to her.

She reaches to grab some cereal that had fallen on Jungeun’s hair earlier at some point. Her hand brushes against Jungeun’s face, giving the girl shivers.

“Hey, you like him, right?” She speaks dismissing their recent interaction.

As Jungeun’s eyes finally find Sooyoung’s she thinks about her answer for longer than she anticipated, but finally settles for a simple “Yes.”

Sooyoung gives her a soft smile in return, “Then that’s all that matters now.”

Before Jungeun could even ponder on the meaning of Sooyoung’s words and protest, she feels the vibration of her phone indicating the arrival of the dreadful text she had been half longing for and half wishing it never came.

  _ **Jisung:** hey, just finished hw. can i call u now? :D_

* * *

“Sooyoung, hi! You look good.” Jisung’s voice is heard through the room, but Jungeun feels it distant.

For a few seconds everything is quiet and Sooyoung’s stare is expectantly on Jungeun, who sits facing her behind the laptop, hiding away from the camera.

“Sooyoung?” Jisung’s voice comes again.

Sooyoung remains frozen in her position, but this time Jungeun snaps out of her panicking state and reacts, “Hi! Sorry, the Wi-Fi sucks.”

Jungeun watches as Sooyoung proceeds to mouth, a few seconds later, the words she just said. They blame the out of sync audio to lagging and poor internet connection. Their lie seems to work perfectly as Jisung falls for it with no questions asked.

They keep coming back to that lie more than once as Jungeun continues to fail in responding to what Jisung says, leaving poor Sooyoung frozen in place with nothing to reply.

Apparently, attentively staring at Sooyoung’s red lips as they move in silence is more distracting than what Jungeun could have ever anticipated.

Truth be told, Sooyoung also finds it hard to listen and follow what Jungeun is saying cause she too, finds it almost impossible to concentrate. But she, unlike _others_ , remains professional…If professional means not once engaging with the webcam and image of a boy that sit in front of you, and instead giving all your attention to the girl that shyly talks behind them.

Sooyoung had never noticed how pretty Jungeun’s lips and smile are. She decides she likes them. Of course a voice as sweet as hers would come out from them. 

Once again, Sooyoung makes a professional decision and gives up on trying to guess what Jungeun is gonna say next, and instead she moves her eyes away from Jungeun’s lips and towards her eyes. She immediately regrets this, as once their eyes meet she finds herself barely able to contain the unexplainable desire to laugh that takes over her.

Jungeun’s lips quiver and Sooyoung is able to tell she feels the same way. A snort escapes from Jungeun and Sooyoung throws her body towards the other girl in an attempt to hide from the camera and laugh as silently as she can. While doing so Jungeun quickly whispers “hang up” on her ear.

“Sooyoung? I can’t see you well now” Jisung says hesitantly.

And it takes almost half a minute for the girls to regain their composure and only then Sooyoung gets back on the frame, “Ah sorry, I was trying to see if I could get closer to the Wi-Fi.”

 The trace of a smirk remains on her face as Jisung continues speaking, “Is it that bad? Do you wanna try this another time, then?”

Sooyoung chuckles as they get the reply they were hoping for, “Would that be okay?”

“Of course, let’s talk later, okay?”

As soon as they hang up laughter erupts from both girls, they’re both practically squirming on the bed from laughing too much at absolutely nothing. The two of them attempt to speak but pure gibberish comes out from their mouths. They try to catch their breath which only results in more wheezing. Jungeun has tears rolling down her face now which makes Sooyoung lose it even more.

It takes almost five minutes for them to calm down, Sooyoung takes a big breath and is finally able to speak in an intelligible way, “I can’t believe he fell for that.”

“Thank God he did.”

As she speaks, Jungeun gets another text and she mindlessly checks it. Her eyes become wide and any trace of laughter that was left in her face is completely erased.

She looks at Sooyoung who is quick to notice the change in the girl and arches her eyebrows curiously.

Jungeun sighs, “We’re fucked.”


	2. second

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so um i said two chapters...might be three.  
> enjoy!!

“So now you have to go on a date with him?” Asks Jiwoo under her breath, her eyes not leaving the back of the teacher in front of the class.

Jungeun silently nods.

“And how exactly will that work?” Jiwoo murmurs a little louder than before,  getting more and more apprehensive.

“Sooyoung will go” Jungeun clarifies almost automatically, and this time she ignores the feeling of the knots in her stomach getting tighter.

Jiwoo shakes her head with such a force that the desk they share shakes lightly, “This is a polyamorous relationship at this point.”

Jungeun rolls her eyes at Jiwoo’s antics and huffs, begging the girl to stop talking.

* * *

 “Let’s just wing it” Sooyoung says flatly. She’s resting her head on the table of the coffee shop, tired after spending hours locked in her room studying with Jungeun for some test she has coming up.

“I don’t think that’s an option” Jungeun’s voice comes almost immediately, hurrying to get that idea out of Sooyoung’s head.

Sooyoung makes a ‘hmph’ noise and Jungeun swears the girl is about to throw a tantrum.

“We already do enough studying!” She finally lifts her head and lays back on her chair, crossing her arms in protest, “This is where I draw the line.”

“Well, I’m ignoring your line.”

Sooyoung stays quiet and can only manage to blink a couple of times, clearly not used to having people say no to her.

Jungeun sighs, “Please, just be prepared in case he brings up something from past conversations.” Sooyoung opens her mouth to protest, but Jungeun beats her to it, “I’m just asking you to remember basic information about him.”

Again, Sooyoung says nothing and only stares at Jungeun, who can practically see the internal battle going on inside the quiet girl.

Sooyoung huffs and speaks in-between gritted teeth, “Fine, whatever”. She wears a look that goes along the lines of sourness and defeat -which is oddly cute, Jungeun thinks to herself-.

Nothing is said for a while and just as Jungeun is about to start speaking again, she notices that she’s no longer the only subject of Sooyoung’s attention. The girl’s eyes seem to be focusing on something behind Jungeun, shifting back and forth from spot to spot.

“What is it?” Jungeun asks as she turns around in order to find out for herself, once she notices what the other girl is staring at, the sound of her accelerating heart prevents her from listening to Sooyoung’s response.

Jisung stands alone by the door of the shop, too focused on the screen of his phone to notice his surroundings. Jungeun immediately turns back around and prays that he doesn’t lift his head any time soon.

“Stop staring” She hisses at Sooyoung, “He’s gonna notice.”

Sooyoung wears a smug smile on her face, evidently finding the situation amusing.

“But that’d be great, don’t you think? Maybe we can have the date now” She says smirking, “You know, save some time.”

Jungeun’s eyes are wide and her heart does the impossible as it starts speeding up even more.

“Should we call him over?” Sooyoung’s voice sounds sickeningly sweet and the only thing that stops Jungeun from throwing herself over the table to attack her is the possibility of drawing Jisung’s attention towards them.

“Don’t you dare” She practically growls.

“Jisung!” Sooyoung acts like she’s screaming but only whispers his name.

Jungeun’s frowning now, and her voice sounds slightly shaky, “Please, don’t.”

Sooyoung’s eyes immediately soften, the smugness of her face disappears and is instead replaced by a pair of concerned eyes. It occurs to her that she’s never seen Jungeun look this vulnerable. Not once through the years of knowing each other, have Sooyoung’s words gotten the girl upset to this degree; not being able to clap back, not even trying to fight with her. Sooyoung hates it.

She hates it and she can’t believe how she’s never noticed that Jungeun wears her heart on her sleeve, it’s so clear and it clashes with her shy personality that had Sooyoung convinced that she’d be a distant, cold person, in complete control of her emotions. It makes Sooyoung want to protect her, look after her.

She reaches out to Jungeun’s hands, “Do you wanna leave?”

Jungeun only does as much as nod, but her grip on Sooyoung’s hand is so tight that Sooyoung can practically feel the way it cuts her blood circulation, she doesn’t mind.

“Then let’s leave.”

* * *

 Jungeun had hopes that time would make things easier. That she’d get used to it and have her body naturally adjust to the sinking feeling in her stomach being a constant factor in her life, but oh how wrong had she been. If anything it has gotten worse, the guilt had always been there but at first she’d just take it as a rush, embrace it as part of the experience. Once she started genuinely caring for Jisung, the guilt got more personal and challenging to ignore. Now, it is practically eating her alive. Talking with him all day just works as a constant reminder of the lie she’s telling, and she isn’t sure of how much longer she’s gonna be able to pull this off.

Whenever she feels like exploding and screaming out the truth to everyone, it is the idea of having to deal with the aftermath that stops her. Of essentially ruining her relationship with Jisung, and most importantly, hurting him. She doesn’t want that, and ironically enough she’s avoiding so by only making the wound deeper. This became a mess that she started without knowing how to end and she’d rather figure that out sooner than later.

For a long time, she considers ending it all later that day. The date would be the perfect opportunity to show up by herself and tell him everything, but her fears and anxieties are bigger than her desire to do the right thing and so she convinces herself to just wait a little longer, have more time to mentally and emotionally prepare for it.

Sooyoung gets ready for the date at Jungeun’s house. Jungeun watches her do her makeup and hair in silence, she thinks it’s ridiculous how good the other girl can look while putting so little effort. Sooyoung is looking anything but casual while wearing a _very casual_ plaid skirt with a _super casual_ shirt that isn’t doing much to cover her stomach. No one should look that good so easily. To top it all off Jungeun is almost positive she can see the faint mark of abs peeking through Sooyoung’s shirt, though she can’t be sure cause she’s not staring, of course she’s not.

Jungeun’s heart keeps doing weird things and she assumes it’s just the nerves for the date, she tries to not focus too much on that.

Sooyoung turns around from the mirror she was using to get ready, and her eyes meet Jungeun’s- or more like they try to but fail as Jungeun’s eyes are focused on Sooyoung, but not her face, precisely-. Jungeun feels Sooyoung’s stare on her and then heat rushing through her body and into her cheeks. The smirk on Sooyoung’s face doesn’t do much to calm her down.

“I’m heading out now,” Sooyoung says, she does nothing to hide her conceited expression.

Jungeun, cheeks still flushing, says nothing and just nods in a barely noticeable way.

Sooyoung tilts her head to the side, eyeing Jungeun suspiciously, “Something’s bothering you.”

Jungeun hums, “A lot is.”

Sooyoung’s eyebrows furrow in concern, but before she can do anything about it, Jungeun speaks again, “But don’t mind it” She shrugs hopelessly, “Just worry about doing good on the date, okay?”

Sooyoung does her best to do as Jungeun tells her but fails tremendously, of course she minds it, and a lot. She takes a mental note to talk with Jungeun about it when she doesn’t have a date to be at in less than ten minutes.

She shots Jungeun a faint smile and heads towards the door. Just as she’s about to leave, Jungeun’s voice comes again and stops for a few seconds, “And, hey?”

“Hm?”

“…Don’t kiss him,” She speaks hesitantly, in a shy manner.

Sooyoung scrunches her nose in disgust, making Jungeun laugh, “Wasn’t planning on.”

* * *

It is fairly early when Jungeun’s phone buzzes and wakes her up. Apparently, she had dozed off at some point in the night, though she’s not entirely sure when.

The recently received text is from Jisung, it reads a simple, “Hey I had fun tonight :)” and she doesn’t have the heart to open it. Beneath that notification there’s a dozen more indicating unread messages from Sooyoung, the last one containing an angry face and asking her, in not a very nice manner, if she had fallen asleep.

Unexpectedly enough, the date had gone anticlimactically boring for both girls. Sooyoung had promised to keep Jungeun updated on everything that happened and texting her immediately if something went wrong, but soon enough Sooyoung’s continuous updates turned into complaints about how boring this date was going, and how lame the movie they were watching was.

_“the movie’s starting now”_

_“he just tried to smoothly put his arm around me. it wasn’t very smooth”_

_“he keeps whispering in my ear D:”_

_“i have no idea what this movie is about”_

_“i’m bored”_

Those were only some of the messages on Jungeun’s phone, and they kept getting worse by the second. Saying that Sooyoung had been spamming Jungeun’s phone for the last two hours was an understatement. It is clear that Jungeun had become Sooyoung’s entertainment for the night, and she felt bad for falling asleep…She also felt bad towards Jisung, there is no way he was that bad, Sooyoung was just being…Sooyoung.

Her phone buzzes one more time, and it is, once again, Sooyoung.

_**sooyoung:** hey i’m outside_

_**sooyoung:**  kim jungeun you better not be asleep or I swear to god_

Still hazy from sleep, Jungeun struggles to comprehend what Sooyoung is talking about; outside where? Swear what? Jungeun just blinks at her phone screen for a while until suddenly she remembers, and everything makes sense once again.

Sooyoung was supposed to go back to Jungeun’s house after the date and fill her out on everything that happened while the memory was still fresh on her mind; knowing Sooyoung she’d forget everything about it by tomorrow under the excuse of her brain only retaining valuable information, so Jungeun had insisted on hearing everything about it that same night.

_Ugh_ , Jungeun thinks, she’d rather just sleep and get a shitty five seconds summary of the two-hour long date in the morning, what made her think this was a good idea.

When she opens the door, Sooyoung is standing there, she can’t hold the giggle that escapes her mouth when she sees Jungeun, “Well you look like a mess.”

Jungeun had changed into more comfortable clothes once Sooyoung had left, more specifically an embarrassingly oversized shirt and baggy sleeping shorts that weren’t the most flattering. On top of that, her hair is standing at all the wrong places from her awkward sleeping position and her cheeks were still flushed from the sudden rush of being unexpectedly waken up.

Sooyoung notices all of this, but only because it is a mess, and an embarrassing one. It is definitely not because she finds it cute or because she’s internally oozing about how adorable Jungeun looks with sleep still in her eyes. Definitely none of that. That’d be ridiculous.

Jungeun, too tired to bother with talking, only acknowledges Sooyoung with her eyes, and then turns around, heading back to her room. Sooyoung follows her.

* * *

“He’s nice,” Sooyoung says, the tone in her voice alluding that it’s a bad thing, “ _Too_ nice.”

Jungeun rolls her eyes, and lightly smacks Sooyoung in the shoulder, “Shut up.”

Sooyoung does anything but shut up. Instead, she starts talking about the date, she tells Jungeun of how tiring it is to deal with someone as polite as Jisung, of how “vanilla” the boy is and even though he genuinely has the best intentions, it makes Sooyoung want to gag. He was really caring and Jungeun would have probably loved it, the conversation flowed naturally most of the times and she told Jungeun all about the different topics they had covered.

It would have been the perfect date if only Sooyoung had any actual interest on it, but she didn’t, and so she hated it.

“You would have loved it,” Sooyoung says in a tone that Jungeun can’t decipher.

Jungeun only makes a humming noise, mostly from being more asleep than awake. Sooyoung doesn’t seem to be bothered by the lack of engagement from the other girl, and continues talking, “He really likes you.”

Jungeun knows there’s some cryptid meaning behind that, she can feel it in the sudden change of air, in the way that Sooyoung’s demeanor changes entirely when saying those words, but she can’t seem to put her finger on it. She opens her eyes widely, attentively, trying her best to fight sleep. Sooyoung looks thoughtful.

“ _Like_ likes you” Sooyoung repeats, “Actually you, not me.”

“Did something else happen that you’re not telling me about?”

Sooyoung shakes her head softly, “It’s just obvious that he does.”

Silence falls between the two but it isn’t awkward at all; if anything, it is comforting. Sooyoung’s eyes, though, are louder than anything she’s ever said. They rest on Jungeun’s face, examining every feature and curve. Her gaze feels warm and delicate, not invasive at all, so Jungeun lets her stare.

“You’re pretty, Jungeun.”

Jungeun’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, taken aback by the words.

“Really pretty” Sooyoung continues shortly, not letting the other girl speak, “Ridiculously smart too, and as if that isn’t enough, you’re kind and sweet, and I could say nice things about you for hours.”

Jungeun stays silent. She can’t think of anything to say, so she only listens.

“I just can’t understand why you’d hide behind me. You’re too good to be doing all this.”

Jungeun’s unsure of what to say in this situation, she doesn’t even know where to begin, how to proceed.

“Don’t you think?” Sooyoung’s voice interrupts her thoughts, trying to prompt a response.

“I-“ But there’s nothing. She barely has any thoughts, let alone words.

Sooyoung sighs, “You think too much, you know that?”

Jungeun lets out a dry laugh, “Very well.”

Sooyoung smiles fondly at Jungeun for a while, but then there’s a glistening in her eyes which, quite frankly, makes Jungeun worry about her wellbeing.

“I say, we should do something about that then.”

* * *

It’s not that Jungeun’s hating it, she actually doesn’t mind it at all, she’d even go as far as saying that she’s enjoying her time in there. It’s just that it is all…overwhelming. The loud music, the warm bodies all cramped up together barely leaving any space to move around. Even the air in the room feels heavier. The heat’s already starting to make her feel all sticky.

Any trace of sleepiness had left her body the minute Sooyoung convinced her to go to a party. She’s trying to believe that she hadn’t given in into the peer pressure of being called “lame” for going to bed at 10pm and declining the invitation to a party during a Saturday night.

“It’s 12pm, parties are _only_ starting now, you can’t be going to bed already!” Sooyoung had said minutes prior to Jungeun defeatedly rolling her eyes and agreeing to go out with her, the excuse being that she really needs to relax and have some ‘fun time without worrying about everything’ -or so Sooyoung said-.

Jungeun has never had any particular interest in parties, any time she was invited to one she’d just brush it off for as long as she could and then last minute announce that she wouldn’t be able to make it. Eventually, she started to not get invited at all, people not even bothering to try anymore; she doesn’t mind it though. If anything, she is glad to not be dealing with that any longer, it used to be mentally draining.

Sooyoung, however, had made it sound promising, fun, and had Jungeun shaking with eagerness as they got ready to go.

As they enter the party, Sooyoung senses Jungeun tense up as she anxiously looks around the room. Sooyoung turns to look at her and grabs her hand attentively, making sure the big crowd around them don’t sway her away. She leans in to whisper into her ear, knowing that any words said out loud right now would be lost in the loud music, “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

At this she notices Jungeun relax, her shoulders loosen up and the frown on her face is replaced by a faint smile. She nods and loses the defensive stance she had acquired seconds ago.

Sooyoung is fast in getting them drinks, she moves skillfully through the crowd and drags Jungeun along with her. As they walk she constantly turns around to check on Jungeun, her stare reassuring the other girl whenever they move from room to room.

She never leaves her side, a few people come up to her, mainly boys with too many drinks on their system trying to get some action for the night -Jungeun notices some of them shooting questioning looks her way- but Sooyoung quickly shuts them off.

Sooyoung handles her alcohol well. Jungeun, however, lacks experience and can’t really say the same. She’s only on her second -or maybe third- cup when she starts feeling lightheaded and starts forgetting what it is that’s had her so agitated lately.

“Whoa, there” Sooyoung puts a steady hand on Jungeun’s back when the girl trips over…air.

Jungeun only giggles in return and Sooyoung looks at her suspiciously.

“Two cups, really? That’s all it took?”

“Joke’s on you cause it was three!” For some reason she can’t explain as other than just feeling like it, Jungeun boops Sooyooung’s nose while saying the last word. The other girl scrunches her face in return.

“…I think” Jungeun adds as an afterthought.

Jungeun’s hand is grabbed by Sooyoung, and she swears it keeps getting warmer and softer each time, so soft, bet not even Jisung’s hands could be this soft. Sooyoung leads her to the kitchen, “Time to get you some water.

* * *

It only takes a minute in which Sooyoung goes to the bathroom for Jungeun to be dragged into some game of beer pong. She has no idea of how it works, and so naturally, ends up drinking through most of it. Needless to say, once the game is over, her ability to walk is practically nonexistent. She feels the room spinning -which is not fun at all, she’s actually feeling pretty dizzy- but she can’t stop laughing, God why is everything making her giggle.

Jungeun sits in some chair near the door of the patio like a lost puppy, waiting for Sooyoung to find her.

While sitting there she starts feeling hot, even more so than before. Is she sweating right now? She raises her hands to touch her own face, and there are…tears? She’s crying and she’s not sure why. Suddenly her mind’s a chaos as she starts pondering on what could be causing this. It’s a sad and disorganized mess with Jisung and Sooyoung as its main characters. She suddenly feels sick and about to throw up, she’s crying even harder now that she’s found a reason to.

As Jungeun sits by herself, drenched in tears and with a phone on her shaky hands, she’s convinced she’s never looked -or felt- this pathetic. She’s got a whole paragraph already written in her mind telling Jisung _everything_ , but then she considers calling him. Yes, calling him is the best option. Wait, can she even talk? It will all probably come out as an unintelligible drunken speech with a pinch of sobbing...Perhaps a call is not the best option.

She goes for the text. She starts putting messy thoughts down into messy words, it doesn’t even look like English, but he will understand, cause he _gets_ her. He gets Jungeun. He has to.

She just has to hit send now and perhaps she needs more drinks cause even in this state there’s a rational part of her mind screaming, begging for her to not do it now, not like this. It’d be easier for her, but even harder for Jisung. It wouldn’t be fair for him and she’d rather keep that respect that is left for him untouched, she owes him at least that much.

She shuts her phone off and cries even harder, she’s full on crying now, ugly sobbing with nonstop falling tears and whiny noises. She’s crying for Jisung. For all he’s done for her, and all she’s done _to_ him. The tears are also for what she hasn’t done, for not telling him the truth.

This is how Sooyoung finds her.

She runs to her and says nothing. She just embraces the sobbing girl and Jungeun is glad, so glad cause she’s suddenly really tired and talking requires a lot of energy. She’d rather just be held. Sooyoung feels warm in contrast to the chilly air that had been holding her for the last minutes. She’s also soft, very soft. Jungeun buries her face into the material of Sooyoung’s shirt and she doesn’t care about leaving tears stains.

They stay in that position for a while. At some point Sooyoung starts playing with Jungeun’s hair which makes the girl awfully sleepy but also calms her down almost magically. Her touch is delicate but firm. It makes Jungeun feel sheltered, not only from everyone in the party who might wanna stare but also from herself. It stops the comfortless thoughts that had come rushing into her mind not too long ago. For that moment those cease to exist and it is only her and Sooyoung.

She wants to stay like that forever.


	3. third

Jungeun wakes up on Monday feeling even worse than the previous morning. Is it even realistic for a hangover to last over two days? Cause that’s what she’s feeling right now.

She can feel the pounding in her head and her eyes hurt from the barely existing sunlight that sneaks through her window. Her throat is dry and for a second she considers skipping school for the day, but the idea of having to later catch up with the missed classes make her head hurt even more, and so that option is instantly forgotten.

She checks her phone, to her disappointment she finds nothing new on it. No text from Jisung, not even Sooyoung. It’s been like this since the party, barely talking with any of the two on Sunday. The abysmal silence from those two made Jungeun question if she had done something she didn’t remember, but when she asked Sooyoung about it she assured her it’s nothing, that she’s just tired and needs a day all to relax.  It didn’t convince Jungeun though, she still feels weird about the whole thing.

It’s the same with Jisung. Jungeun could practically remember the entire thing that had gone down, even if it feels like a foggy memory from some past dream. Jiwoo had laughed at her when she described it as an “out of body experience”. There are, though, some parts she doesn’t remember. For example, her heart had almost dropped out of her chest when she woke up the morning after the party to a bunch of texts from a concerned Jisung. She opened the conversation and noticed a couple of messages she didn’t remember sending. They were barely readable, but she could make up some phrases along the lines of ‘I need to tell you something very important’ and ‘I can’t do this anymore’.

Jisung had called her multiple times after that and texted her even more. As soon as she saw all that Jungeun had rushed to explain to him that it was nothing, that she had been drunk and saying nonsense. Jisung kept insisting on it, though, not buying that excuse. After a while, he had hesitantly let Jungeun get away with it, but then things felt awkward for the rest of the day.

Jungeun can only sigh as she gets ready for school. She tries to convince herself that not skipping is for the best, otherwise she would just stay home and overthink even more than she already has. She’d rather just avoid her emotional turmoil getting the best out of her and let school be her torturer for the day.

* * *

It is only once Jungeun is in her fifth class of the day that she confirms that something is definitely…off with Sooyoung.

The other girl had been ignoring her the entire day. They don’t even share that many classes, but the absence of Sooyoung is still evident. She hadn’t stopped in Jungeun’s locker during the morning like she usually does, and whenever they passed each other in the hallways, Sooyoung wouldn’t even acknowledge Jungeun, not spare her a glance, or a simple greeting smile.

This is now beyond Jungeun overthinking and overanalyzing the behavior of others like she usually does. It’s clear that something’s wrong with Sooyoung and that something has to do with Jungeun, otherwise, she wouldn’t be avoiding her so adamantly.

When she enters the classroom, Jungeun sees Jiwoo excitedly waving at her as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in reality they had shared a class only two periods ago. She sits in their usual spot, which happens to be only two sits behind Sooyoung’s.

The first minutes of the class go by quietly, and sleep would have taken over Jungeun if it wasn’t for the staring. She can’t help but get lost in the almost perfect view she has of Sooyoung. She notices the girl being exceptionally quiet, keeping her head down for such a long time that Jungeun starts thinking she may have fallen asleep but then she shifts and, with her head still down, she angles her view towards Jungeun. Sooyoung’s entire body jolts when she notices Jungeun staring back, she quickly stands straight, her back looking stiff at a ninety-degree angle and with all her attention directed towards the teacher. Jungeun quietly giggles at the sudden reaction and shakes her head dismissively when Jiwoo looks at her questioningly.

Through the rest of the class, she can feel Sooyoung stealing glances at her.

Sooyoung tries to do it as secretively as possible but it’s hard given their positions. Sooyoung even amazes herself with her lack of smoothness, it’s double the challenge to find a way to look behind her while also making sure that Jungeun doesn’t notice. She is aware of how much she’s failing; she notices Jungeun staring back at her, the questioning look on her face and the soft smile on her lips.

The latter, the smile, is a new one. Before this class Jungeun had been frowning all day long, looking upset and the farthest away from smiling. Sooyoung doesn’t feel that far from that mood herself. In fact, she’s been in that exact same mood since the day before, which she hates...So much.

There’s nothing that she dislikes more than not being in control of her feelings, of being subject of something that she isn’t dictating. That lack of authority drives her crazy and so naturally, she deals with it in the most rational and healthy way possible: Ignoring it, ignoring the thing that’s bothering her as a whole. Ignore her feelings and everything surrounding them, Jungeun included.

Sooyoung can’t explain what it is about Jungeun, but she also refuses to look for an explanation. Exploring all those feelings and thoughts that she had not anticipated is something she has no intentions of doing. She just knows that Jungeun makes her confused, and happy…and mad for not only being the one that Sooyoung wants to spend all her time with but also for being the only person that Sooyoung can think about. Suddenly everything she does reminds her of the girl and she finds it ridiculous.

That night at the party, it all became too much for Sooyoung. Seeing Jungeun like that had made her feel so much for her in so many ways that she never had before, and it scares her. It scares her to somehow feel too close for comfort with the person that she’s been feeling the most comfortable with in the last couple of weeks; what that signifies and what that would do to her, to them.

And so now, she finds herself in the middle of a classroom doing a shitty job at channeling all those feelings. She tries her best to distance herself from Jungeun, she just needs some time to think, to sort her thoughts out, but it’s just so hard to do. Jungeun is always there, anywhere she looks Jungeun is there, asking Sooyoung to give her all her attention, begging to be looked at and every time it gets harder to not give in.

Eventually, she stops fighting it. She’s bored in class and decides to peek; just a little bit. Clearly, ignoring Jungeun is only making her become even more self-aware of the other girl’s every move, so the damage has already been done. She goes for it and wonders what Jungeun is doing and- whoop there it is, Jungeun’s looking right back at her. She’s noticed the staring. Sooyoung can hear an alarm going off in her head, screaming to abort mission. She feels that thing that her stomach and heart do every time she looks at Jungeun and she hates it, she hates it because she’s been missing it all day.

She forces herself to look away, it’s evidently hard and she can feel her cheeks heating up from embarrassment as she tries to pretend the weight of Jungeun’s stare at the back of her head isn’t there.

As Sooyoung’s eyes accidentally meet Jungeun’s for the god-knows-what-time during that last hour, Sooyoung swears that this is the longest class she’s ever been in and she’s not even sure if she hates it or loves it.

* * *

 “What’s with you two?” The voice of Jiwoo snaps Jungeun out of the Sooyoung induced trance she’s been in through most of the class.

“What?” Jungeun asks flatly, trying to disguise her surprise.

Jiwoo glances over Jungeun’s shoulder, Jungeun doesn’t have to follow her line of sight to know she’s directing it towards Sooyoung, “Sooyoung and you…You’ve been stealing glances at each other throughout the entire class.”

The callout catches Jungeun off-guard, for the last hour she had forgotten there are other people around her other than Sooyoung that were able to watch their interactions.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about” She tries to say nonchalantly as she pretends to write notes in her notebook, action which would have been more convincing had she not been holding the pen upside down.

Jiwoo quirks an eyebrow, “You really think I wasn’t noticing? Pretty sure the entire class has.”

Jungeun ignores the feeling of her cheeks burning up and prays that Jiwoo doesn’t notice her ears turning red. That’s something the shorter girl is always teasing her about, which only results in the red becoming even more evident and Jiwoo not letting Jungeun live.

“So, what is it?!” Jiwoo insists, “I noticed you haven’t talked all day too.”

Jungeun feels her face going warmer and squints her eyes at Jiwoo, questioning her sudden observant nature.

Jiwoo shrugs, “What?! You’re my best friend, of course, I pay attention to you.”

Even in this situation, Jungeun is able to appreciate Jiwoo’s protective side. She’s always been a person with a strong thoughtful and attentive side, thing which Jungeun has learned to appreciate more and more as they grow older. 

Every time Jiwoo acts like that, Jungeun is reminded of how when they were younger Jiwoo would always burst into tears whenever Jungeun did. The shorter girl had no reason to cry other than feeling sad over seeing her friend cry. One time she even teared up cause Jungeun’s eyes had gone watery after yawning. It’s a characteristic that has always been in Jiwoo, it just…matured with her.

Jungeun sighs loudly, “Honestly, I don’t even know.”

Jiwoo tilts her head to the side, confused at the answer.

“She’s being ignoring me since the party.” Jungeun explains, “This is like, the first interaction we’ve had all day.”

“Did something happen at the party?”

“Nothing that I haven’t told you.”

“Hm,” Jiwoo looks pensive as she eyes Sooyoung, “That’s weird.”

Jungeun nods in agreement, “I asked her already, but she assured me nothing is wrong.”

“Well, I assure you that’s a big fat lie,” Jiwoo says matter-of-factly.

Jungeun huffs. She knows Jiwoo is most likely right and it annoys her to not be able to think of a possible answer for Sooyoung’s behavior, to have Sooyoung deny it just like that and to not be able to fully rely on her memory; her entire recollection of their evening being foggy with the effect of alcohol.

“You should confront her again,” Jiwoo proposes, thoughtfully, “In person.”

For some reason the idea makes Jungeun nervous.

Jiwoo, as always, senses it and is quick to reassure Jungeun, “Hey, I’m sure it’s nothing serious. She’s probably just in a mood.”

Jungeun nods. _Nothing serious._

She really hopes Jiwoo is right on that one.

* * *

 Jungeun blinks and suddenly the day at school is over and so are her chances of approaching Sooyoung in person any time soon. It happened unintentionally, or so she likes to think. Jungeun got too busy rushing from class to class and practically didn’t see the other girl for the rest of the day after that One class.

Sooyoung has, however, been present in her mind the entire time. Every time Jungeun’s phone buzzed she’d hope it was Sooyoung asking her to meet somewhere in between classes, and every time she got disappointed. So much so that she would not even bother with opening whatever message she had actually received, leaving a ton of unread texts from Jisung. Jungeun hadn’t even become conscious of the fact that she hasn’t talked with the boy the entire day.

As the bell indicating the end of school rings, Jungeun rushes out of the classroom, in hopes of meeting Sooyoung before she leaves the school. She hangs around the hallways for a while, she scans every face, trying to find Sooyoung among the crowd, but nothing comes out of it.

Jungeun sighs defeatedly and starts walking towards the exit, accepting her fate of having to deal with this unspoken strain in their friendship for another day.

As she walks through the school’s front yard Jungeun notices two silhouettes from the corner of her eye that look oddly familiar. She considers the possibility that her mind may be playing tricks on her, making her see Sooyoung everywhere, but as she turns her focus towards them she confirms that she hasn’t gone that insane just yet.

Her breath hitches and she rushes to take cover behind some tree. If it wasn’t for her unexplainable anxiety over the sudden situation, she would have laughed at the cliché aspects of it.

Jungeun observes them from her hiding spot and tries her best to not feel like a total creep. Jisung is awfully close to Sooyoung and it makes Jungeun twist her face in the most uncomfortable way possible. He keeps getting closer to Sooyoung with every passing second; no one should ever be that close in public and _ugh_ , can’t he control himself a little bit?

She notices Sooyoung wearing an uneasy expression on her face and Jungeun almost feels like barging in to scream at the boy for not noticing it, but then she realizes that he just doesn’t know her like she does.

He’s probably too busy thinking Sooyoung’s just nervous around the boy she likes to notice the way her eyes keep distressfully looking anywhere but him, or the way her hands fiddle against her own body, or how she wears a fake closed-mouth smile instead of her usual teeth-flashing charming one that only Jungeun seems to be familiar with.

_How dumb can you be?_ Jungeun thinks to herself over how unaware Jisung is being, but can she really blame him? He practically doesn’t even know the girl standing in front of him. Jungeun shudders and pushes the thought away.

Her back starts cramping from the hunched over and awkward position she’s been standing in for the last few minutes, and before she gets distracted with cursing under her breath about how much her back is hurting, she finds a whole new reason to curse.

She sees Jisung being horrible at personal space once again but this time it goes a bit too far, so far that it almost makes Jungeun choke with her breath and definitely far enough for his lips to touch Sooyoung’s.

Jungeun’s heart speeds up so much that it almost feels like she’s the one getting kissed. She also feels a drop in her stomach that has no end, it’s a feeling of endless falling that makes her feel everything and nothing in those few seconds that she watches them.

Jungeun notices nothing other than Sooyoung’s lips being touched by Jisung’s and completely misses the way Sooyoung practically pushes him away, the perplexed look that takes over her face and how her wandering eyes look towards where Jungeun, who is no longer trying to make herself invisible, stands and successfully spots her.

Sooyoung’s baffled look turns into a troubled one, filled with remorse.

Jungeun rushes to leave the yard, wanting to get as far away as possible.

Everything inside Sooyoung aches, wanting to run after her, explain what just happened but Jisung holds onto her and she can’t move. With her brain being too hazy to think of an excuse to get away from him, she can’t do much other than stare as Jungeun walks away.

* * *

 Jungeun forces herself to take a deep breath, to slow down her pace and to keep the tears behind her eyes.

The last one becomes harder with each step she takes but she refuses to cry in public and she will do everything in her power to avoid that situation...However, that doesn’t seem to be enough cause soon enough she’s sitting down in some bus station with tears rolling down her face.

She feels so stupid and it’s so hard to stop the tears and the feeling of having gotten hit in the stomach. She just wants to disappear and not have to deal with feelings and people and whatever is happening to her.

Being too immersed in her crying Jungeun doesn’t notice Sooyoung running towards her, pays even less attention to when she stood in front of her, saying nothing and trying to catch her breath from all running. Jungeun is also too absent-minded to recall the moment in which Sooyoung took her by the wrist and started dragging her to god knows where.

Once she finally realizes the situation, Jungeun tries to fight Sooyoung’s hold but the girl is way too strong to even notice Jungeun putting up a fight. She wants to scream, to shout to be left alone, but people are already staring and she would hate for this to become an even bigger scene. Her crying also makes it hard for her to control her voice, and she’s sure that any attempt at talking right now would come out as a garbled mess.

Jungeun just lets Sooyoung drag her and totally doesn’t notice how comforting the warmth of her hand feels against her own skin cause she’s mad and hurt and wants nothing to do with Sooyoung right now.

Jungeun realizes that Sooyoung is taking her back to the now empty school, which offers them the most accessible and private setting in this situation.

The walk to the bus stop had felt awfully long to Jungeun, her heavy steps making it dreadful when in reality it takes them less than five minutes to be back in the building, locked in some classroom where it’s just the two of them.

The atmosphere is uncomfortable and only awkward glances are thrown back and forth as an attempt to deal with it. Jungeun is even self-aware of the breaths she gives.

“I know you saw us.” Sooyoung finally speaks.

Those words somehow manage to trigger all the emotions in Jungeun once again. She feels that emptiness back in her stomach and the return of the necessity to both snap at the girl standing in front of her and lock herself in a room where she can just cry without saying a word to anyone.

Jungeun takes a calming breath, “How could you?”

“He came to see you but-”

“You kissed him.”

“It’s not like that!” Sooyoung defends herself quickly.

“You kissed him!” Jungeun repeats, this time putting more weight in her words.

“He kissed me! And what was I supposed to do?!” Sooyoung replies quickly, “It happened fast, and I’m supposed to like him, remember? That’s what’s expected of me!”

“The one thing I asked you not to do and you just-”

“This is a situation _you_ put me in,” Sooyoung’s tone is different now, “You don’t get to be mad now.”

“You like him,” Jungeun says flatly.

Sooyoung blinks in surprise at that, it takes her a minute to take in what Jungeun had just said, maybe she heard her wrong, or it was worded weirdly. There is no way Jungeun actually thinks that.

“What?” It comes out harshly, barely any trace of concern now.

“That’s what this is about,” Jungeun replies matter-of-factly, “You like him, don’t you?”

Sooyoung sighs, deeply, “Jungeun, you’re being ridiculous.”

“I get it now, that’s why you’ve been ignoring me.”

Now Sooyoung just wants to slap the girl, even if it doesn’t do much to help with the conversation it could still knock some sense into her or something. She’s exasperated now and can do absolutely nothing about it other than take a soothing breath – or many – before talking again, “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Just say it!” Jungeun’s voice raises a little bit this time but sounds even weaker than before, “You like him, and you kissed him because you wanted to.”

“I don’t like Jisung!” Sooyoung protests immediately, “I don’t care about him!”

Jungeun scoffs, and crosses her arms, “Of course you do. Why else would you have agreed to all this, then?”

“It has never been about him, you idiot!” Sooyoung snaps back, and it sounds way more emotional and louder than she had planned, so much that Jungeun takes a step back.

Sooyoung wants to slap the girl even harder now and she can’t help the feeling of deep offense at the accusations. If she really wanted to get with the boy she wouldn’t go through all this trouble, she could have him already if that was her wish but of course it’s not him that Sooyoung wants, of course if having what she wanted was that easy she wouldn’t be doing all this.

Jungeun stays quiet for a minute, noticeably confused at Sooyoung’s response and probably not understanding it, just the same way she has completely misunderstood this entire situation.

Jungeun just shakes her head. Sooyoung hates how vulnerable she looks and for a second forgets about her desire to fight the girl.

“I don’t wanna talk to you right now,” Jungeun murmurs, much calmer than before, she sounds exhausted.

“Jungeun–”

But before Sooyoung can do anything to stop her, she’s already walking towards the door. It takes everything in Sooyoung to not follow her, to not grab her again and force her to stay in that room, to talk things out and lock her in till everything’s okay again.

She just wants them to be okay.

* * *

 It would be a lie to say that Jungeun hadn’t spent the last three hours replaying her conversation with Sooyoung, but then it would also be pathetic to admit that she had. So, Jungeun is in quite a pickle, to put it nicely.

She didn’t mean to snap like that, she barely ever does. She often prides herself on the outstanding control she has over her feelings. Always in tune with them and allowing herself to listen to her own thoughts and understand them. However, most times aren’t as complicated as this situation is. Most times her own feelings aren’t so confusing and contradicting and filled with teen angst. She is used to stand in black and white, not in gray areas that leave her feeling things she doesn’t understand. Things like being mad at your friend for kissing the boy you like and not you.

It makes her head hurt, that feeling. So now she has both an (inexplicably) hurting heart and head and she swears she’s gonna die. She can’t even overanalyze and break down Sooyoung’s words one by one to really figure out the girl’s feelings like she usually would cause her head is physically pounding, and doing any thinking in general feels like death but especially thinking regarding her conversation and how she had acted in such a stupid and unreasonable manner.

Somehow Jungeun reaches the conclusion that since she’s already dying soon she might as well risk it all and go see Sooyoung. They were supposed to study that day after school as always, so technically, since it was never officially canceled, she does have an excuse to be there now.

She doesn’t even try calling or texting Sooyoung and starts walking towards her house.

* * *

 Jungeun is barely turning the corner of Sooyoung’s block when she hears screams that sound awfully recognizable. She smiles to herself and feels thankful for having some sense of familiarity and it’s _so_ weird cause she never thought she’d ever be thankful towards the screeches of the three demons that call themselves the youngest members of the Ha family.

Jungeun is now standing at the entrance. The screams immediately halt once she rings the doorbell and are instead replaced by the sound of footsteps running towards the door.

“I’ll answer it.” She hears Yeojin say from the inside.

“You can barely reach the knob, I will.” The voice sounds like Chaewon this time.

“No, I’m the oldest one I got this.”

Jungeun frowns at that because one, how are they managing to make whispering sound so loud and two, that was definitely Yerim talking and Yerim is definitely not the oldest one.

She then hears Chaewon protest while some altercation (which does not sound violent-free at all) goes down and shortly after, Yerim answers the door with the biggest smile plastered across her face.

“Hello there, Kim Jungeun.” She greets sounding exceptionally formal.

“Hello there, Yerim.” Jungeun says back, copying her tone, “Is your sister home?”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“Yep. Gone. Out. She’s not here” Yerim replies in a totally convincing manner as she looks at Jungeun through the open door.

“Ah,” Jungeun is unsure of what to do next, though it’s not like she had a plan in the first place anyway, “Um. Okay.”

“Mhm. Oh, and by the way,” Yerim’s tone continues to be icy and sharp, “I’m mad at you, Kim Jungeun”

Jungeun’s eyes widen, that unexpectedly answers Yerim’s weird behavior but creates a whole new question, “You are?”

“Yes, you made my sister cry.” Yerim frowns and inspects Jungeun’s face for a while before adding something to her previous statement, “And you made yourself cry too.”

This sudden call-out session has Jungeun not only feeling painfully guilty but also likes she’s being picked apart under a microscope and the worst part is that a 10-year-old is doing so.

“You don’t know that.” Jungeun defensively crosses her arms.

Yerim’s stare intensifies and her expression becomes even more determined, “I can see it in your eyes.”

Jungeun stares at Yerim in confusion, is everyone in this family this puzzling?

It took her some time but Jungeun is now used to how weird these kids can get but this…

She’d rather have Yerim go back to screaming nonsense and stop acting so insightful and reading Jungeun far too well for a child.

“And by that, I mean they are puffy.”

Oh….Nevermind.

“So are you gonna tell me, or what?” Yerim insists.

“I don’t think I should be telling you that. It’s…Grown-up st-”

“Don’t you dare say it’s a grown-up thing!” Yerim whines as she stomps one of her feet in protest, “I’m old enough, the oldest one of my sisters!”

“You’re not-”

But before she can finish her idea she is once again interrupted by the younger girl, “Mentally speaking, I mean. I’m very mature. Just tell me.”

Yerin pats her own head proudly while Jungeun remains quiet, trying to think of the best way to proceed with the conversation. She has never been good with kids, let alone nosy ones, so now her brain is not responding as fast as she would like.

Yerim takes a dramatically long sigh, “Fine, want _me_ to tell you what I think?”

“I-” Jungeun is about to deny the suggestion, but decides that it can’t be that bad, “Sure, go for it.”

“I think you’re both being stupid.”

Well…Maybe it can be.

A gasp escapes Jungeun’s mouth, is she supposed to be saying words like that at such a young age? And whatever happened to that whole respect your elders thing.

The gasp and shock in Jungeun’s face are ignored by Yerim who continues speaking.

“Clearly, you both care about each other. From…an-” She pauses for a second to choose her words correctly, “….Inside source I can assure you she does, and a lot. And she doesn’t wanna hurt you. I’m sure you don’t wanna hurt her either, right?”

“Right.”

“So, what’s the problem?!” She says it like it’s almost obvious that there’s none and Jungeun envies her for her simplicity.

“That’s the problem! I care too much.” Jungeun flushes once she realizes what she had just said and to _who_.

“There’s not such a thing,” Yerim replies, sternly.

Jungeun shakes her head and sighs, “There is this time.”

Yerim shakes her head even harder, making a disapproving sound with her mouth, “She cares just as much.”

“I’m not so sure about that one.” This time Jungeun can’t meet Yerim’s eyes, so she just looks down to the ground.

“She does, you dumbass.” What is it with this family and calling her names? “I’m telling you.”

Insult and all, Yerim does sound sincere and Jungeun hates that it gives her…Hope?

“Anyway!” Yerim says loudly, breaking the dull atmosphere that was starting to form, “I have a Mario Kart tournament to get back to, so…”

She turns away and starts going into the house, ready to lock the door behind her

“Hey, Yerim?” Jungeun stops her.

Yerim looks back at Jungeun, arching her eyebrows expectantly at the older girl.

“Thank you.”

Yerim says nothing in return, but the smile and not smooth at all wink that she offers are more than enough.

As weird as the interaction and Yerim’s words had been, they help Jungeun start to understand things a little better.


	4. fourth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h-hello....i'm sorry this update took so long life kinda gets in the way. but anyways, thank you so much to everyone that's been keeping up with this story, and hopefully this last chapter is of your liking!!
> 
> enjoy~

Jungeun falls on her bed and the sound of her own body hitting the mattress startles her. The impact makes her phone bounce off the bed, crashing against the floor with a loud bang.

 _Oh my god_ , Jungeun thinks, _please don’t let it be broken._

She doesn’t have the energy to check and she can feel tears behind her eyes starting to form over the fear of a shattered screen.

This is it...this is her breaking point, and it happens to be a very pathetic one.

Once the tears start falling it’s hard to stop them. In a matter of seconds, the frustration tears turn into upset ones and the upset ones into despair ones. Jungeun hopes that somehow this abrupt crying session helps with getting it all out of her system and get some relief, but instead it only makes her feel worse. Almost like she’s immersing in her own feelings, drowning.

The sound of her own sobbing becomes background noise as Jungeun becomes too preoccupied with Jisung’s words from earlier replaying in her head. Over and over again like a loop that she wishes would turn out different every time it plays; only to leave her with a bigger heartbreak every time it doesn’t.

_“So, everything was a lie?” His voice had sounded harsh, harsh enough to make up for the glittery look of his eyes._

_“No! I just- I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jungeun had said in defense, though it had been pointless as Jisung was no longer listening to her._

_“You’re lying even now. Do you ever stop?”_

_She had nothing to say, there was nothing that would alleviate the situation at that point._

She had gone to Jisung’s house on a whim, on a sudden burst of courage in which she had decided that enough was enough and that things needed to end right there and then.

Seeing Sooyoung hurt over her actions had almost been like a wakeup call for Jungeun. Not that Jisung wasn’t enough, but now more people around her were getting hurt while trying to help her, and it was all getting way too confusing for Jungeun to continue turning a blind eye to the mess she made.

The conversation had been awkward and uncomfortable in every way possible and even going to Jisung’s house so suddenly felt wrong and invasive, considering that in a way, he doesn’t really know who she is. Knocking on the door had Jungeun on the verge of an anxiety attack and seeing Jisung open it with a questioning, yet friendly look didn’t do much to dissipate it.

Even now, as she lies on bed, the thought of how his friendly expression turned into a hurt, broken one, makes her heart clench.

“Hi, Jisung,” She had said in an apprehensive manner.

Her words made Jisung frown, his head tilting to the side in confusion, “Sorry to ask, but do I know you?”

“Ah, kinda…” Jungeun knew that was the moment to say it all, she took a big sigh and started explaining things. Slowly, taking much-needed breaths in between, and not stopping no matter how mad it all sounded or how confused Jisung looked, or how much he probably wanted to slam the door in her face. She kept talking as she very painfully ignored everything, including the hurt look starting to show in front of her.

It had been messy, both of them with tears coating their eyes, Jisung walking a thin line between anger, confusion and sadness while Jungeun felt like the worst person to ever walk on earth.

The part that she hates the most now is the walking away feeling _relieved_. To be glad about finally having that out of her chest and the weight of the lie off her shoulders. To somehow feel as if things were better now that Jisung is hurt. To feel as if she’s gained out of taking something from someone she cares about deeply.

Jungeun doesn’t know what to do about these opposing feelings, about not being sure of what to feel about this situation, about Jisung, towards Sooyoung. So, she just does the only thing that seems accessible and not scary now; crying.

She cries for hours, probably harder than in her entire life. This seems to have become a frequent activity for her these days. All the practice makes her finally break her crying record, apparently.

Her throat feels harsh and dry, contrasting with her face, pillow and shirt; all soaked with tears. It doesn’t help much, it just makes her tired, drains her from all the energy left in her -which wasn’t much anyway- and even makes her head hurt.

She’s too focused crying to notice the sleep slowly taking over her body. Her sobbing calms down a bit, and her eyes feel heavier as if the weight of all the tears she had just shed was still there. Her blinking becomes slower and before she knows it, she’s sleeping.

* * *

 The sound of a buzzing phone against the cold hard floor is what wakes Jungeun up.

She’s uncertain of how long she slept for but surely it wasn’t enough, she feels even more tired now. She barely has the energy to get out of bed, so she just rolls to the edge of it to reach for her phone.

She lets out a sigh of relief at finding it with no cracks and in perfect condition. She has unread messages from Jiwoo, asking her in at least ten different ways if she’s okay or needs anything. Somehow in-between a nap and a nervous breakdown, Jungeun had managed to give Jiwoo a brief explanation of what had gone down between herself and Jisung. This, apparently, had left Jiwoo very worried about her best friend; but who wouldn’t be after receiving paragraph long texts that mostly consist of words that look like pure key smashing and poorly redacted sentences with a couple of voice notes in between in which sniffing and shaky breaths can be heard.

One of Jiwoo’s texts stands out from the rest and gains all of Jungeun’s attention.

 **_Jiwoo:_ ** _hey, feeling better?! :(  remember i care about u a lot and that i’m here if u need to talk and uh_

 **_Jiwoo:_ ** _don’t kill me later :)_

She hits call, ready to interrogate Jiwoo about what she meant by that, but the first ringing gets interrupted by a knock on Jungeun’s door.

“Come in!” She says mindlessly, as she waits for Jiwoo to pick up the phone.

She expects one of her parents to walk through the door, worried about the radio silence they’ve had from their teenage daughter, who’s been locked up in her room practically all day. She’s prepared to give a lie about how she just needed to sleep off a headache that’s been killing her since morning, probably from all the stress caused by the intense schoolwork that comes with senior year. All her planning becomes useless when she notices the person that’s actually coming into her room.

The unexpected visitor causes Jungeun to drop her phone (for the second time that day) as Jiwoo’s voice goes, “Hello? Jungeun?”

This time the screen cracking is the least of her worries.

“Your dad let me in, he thought we, uh, had a tutoring session today or something.”

Jungeun can only nod, too dumbfounded by Sooyoung’s presence. She has so much she wants to say, a bunch of thoughts run through her mind per second, but nothing comes out of her mouth, she just stands frozen in place.

Sooyoung doesn’t move either, she looks uncomfortable and unsure of what to do next. She looks around for a few seconds until eventually her eyes fall back on Jungeun. The other girl looks like a mess, and _not_ in the cute way like that one time after the first date with Jisung. This time she looks completely destroyed, if she tried Sooyoung could probably look into the other girl’s eyes and count in how many parts her heart had broken into.

“Did Jiwoo- tell you?” Jungeun finally breaks her silence.

Sooyoung speaks over the second half of Jungeun’s sentence, “Jiwoo told me, yeah.”

Jungeun takes a big sigh, now her friend’s text makes sense, “Of course she did.”

The two go silent again, but it’s not much before Sooyoung speaks again.

“How’d it go? You- Are you okay?”

Those words trigger something in Jungeun and suddenly she feels like bursting into tears all over again. She just shakes her head until she feels confident in her voice not breaking while she speaks.

“Don’t. You shouldn’t-” Jungeun takes a second to gather her thoughts before speaking again, “You shouldn’t be worrying about me when I haven’t even apologized for snapping on you like I did.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sooyoung waves her hands dismissively, “Right now I only care about you being okay.”

Honestly, when Jiwoo told Sooyoung about Jungeun finally coming clean to Jisung about everything, she knew immediately that it must have been hard for the girl; Jiwoo confirmed her suspicions when she told her that Jungeun couldn’t be reached for over four hours. That had only made Sooyoung worry even more.

Yeah, she was mad and hurt at Jungeun and things had been in an awkward place even before they had that fight, but Sooyoung knew that she wanted to be there for the girl no matter what.

She knew that now, more than ever, Jungeun would need a shoulder to lean on…or two considering she also has Jiwoo. But still, she wanted to make sure she was alright, she needed to.

Sooyoung rushed to Jungeun’s house as soon as her call with Jiwoo ended.

“I _do_ worry,” Jungeun takes a couple of steps towards Sooyoung, finally closing the awkward gap between them, “I don’t deserve that. You’ve been nothing but amazing to me through all of this and I was a total asshole to you when you were just helping and I hurt you and made you cry and you-”

“Hey,” Sooyoung interrupts Jungeun before she runs out of breath, this time she’s the one to take a step closer to the talking girl. She grabs Jungeun’s hands reassuringly and tries to not get distracted by how much she had missed doing that, “It’s fine, really. I get it. We’re okay.”

Jungeun looks down to their intertwined fingers and lets a small smile escape her for the first time in days as she feels the warmth of both Sooyoung’s hands and her words.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Jungeun says softly.

“I know you are.”

As the air seems to become easier to breathe, they move to continue their conversation sitting on the edge of Jungeun’s bed.

“So, how are you feeling?” Sooyoung insists.

Jungeun’s scared to answer that question, still unsure of how to put her somehow contradictory feelings into words, she’s barely managed to put them into thoughts she herself can understand.

“Bad.” She says simply. “But relieved, I think.”

“That’s normal,” Sooyoung replies sounding sincere, but still concerned.

“I couldn’t keep lying to him. I hate what this became. You know, I never wanted to hurt people around me for the sake of my own feelings, it was stupid. _I_ was stupid for thinking it wouldn’t end like this, for even getting into this situation.”

Jungeun feels gross all over again as she thinks of everything she caused but tries her best to focus on the feeling that comes with having finally said the truth, even if it had come a little late, even if it felt as if she had done more damage to Jisung than good.

She stops herself before her thoughts become darker again.

“Hm,” Sooyoung mumbles, “I mean, you were...but you’re in the age to do dumb stuff, yeah? If not now, then when. Sometimes you gotta make the mistake to learn the lesson. What matters is that now you amend it, which you got the intention of doing, right? That’s a good start, life is like…trial and error or whatever.”

Jungeun lets out a soft laugh at Sooyoung’s attempt to sound cool near the end of her short (yet inspiring) talk. She appreciates it. “You’re smarter than you pretend, bet you never even needed my help.”

Sooyoung jokingly elbows Jungeun, and places her index finger over her mouth, “Shh, don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh god,” Jungeun says dramatically, “Not any more secrets, please.”

As Sooyoung’s laugh fills the air, Jungeun thinks back to Jiwoo’s text and how killing her is the last thing she wants to do right now. She’d thank her, if anything, for telling Sooyoung, for somehow knowing exactly what she needed, for always making things better.

She’s finally able to feel lighter, to enjoy Sooyoung’s presence without a lie weighing her down, she can sense the sinking feeling in her stomach getting significantly smaller.

Things aren’t perfect but at least they’re getting better.

At least she has Sooyoung.

* * *

Jungeun spends a lot of alone time in the following days, she needs it. Her mind uses every second of silence to scream about Jisung, asking to reach out to him and somehow make things better, at least try to; but she knows that if she herself needs some time then so does he, and probably twice as much. Jungeun ignores the impulse to text him, call him, or go knock on his door again. That impulse is always bothering her at the back of her mind, somehow managing to steal most of her energy. All she can do is let it, and try to distract herself from those feelings by imagining all the different ways in which the conversation with Jisung could go.

She narrows it down to four options:

  1. He completely avoids her, and the conversation never actually happens.
  2. He hears her out but ends up hating her even more.
  3. Talking about it only makes the fresh wound bigger and Jisung gets hurt once again.
  4. Jisung files a restriction order.



Jungeun believes all options are completely possible and realistic, she even considers _all_ of them becoming a reality, they could occur on that exact chronological order. The thought makes her shudder.

The more thinking she does the more suffocated and troubled she feels. It takes a couple of days for Jungeun to finally decide on going to Jiwoo for a professional opinion; she’ll trust on her judgement of which option seems the most probable and on the best way to approach the situation.

As she presents her case to Jiwoo, the girl only listens, barely saying any words in between and only making a sound here and there to assure Jungeun that she’s paying attention.

“So,” Jungeun says slightly out of breath from all the talking, “What do you think.”

Jiwoo has her hands over her mouth pensively, she opens her mouth to talk a couple of times, but each time she closes it without any actual words coming out of it.

“Jungie,” She finally says, “I’m saying this with the nicest possible intentions, but I think you’re being a bit dramatic.”

“I-”

“No,” Jiwoo speaks again, interrupting the other girl, “Very dramatic, actually. You’re being very dramatic _and_ negative”

Jungeun sighs, “I just…worry.”

“As you should but, let’s think about things rationally here. Does Jisung really seem like the type of guy to act out of spite?”

“Well…no,” Jungeun replies half-heartedly, “But what I did to him was-”

“Awful, yes. But based on what you’ve told me he seems like a really mature and level-headed guy that would very much be up for a conversation about this.”

“Yeah but-”

Jungeun is once again shut down by Jiwoo at record speed as she lifts her finger in a shushing manner.

“There’s no way he would actually react like you just said and you know it, that’s just you overthinking too much, as always. And I promise you that right now talking is the only and best thing you can do. Maybe things won’t end up perfect between you two, but things will be solved, and that’s what we want, right?”

Jungeun remains silent as she internalizes Jiwoo’s words, she knows they speak the truth, she always had, but her mind simply refuses to listen to any of her own thoughts that aren’t horribly negative, so having Jiwoo saying it eases her down and reassures her into being sure that this is the best thing to do. She knows she can’t just walk away from Jisung without even trying to fix things.

“Right?!” Jiwoo insists and pulls her back into the conversation.

Jungeun nods, “Right. That’s what we want.”

Jiwoo offers Jungeun one of her most genuine smiles, the type that somehow always make things feel better, “And that’s what we’ll get!”

* * *

Two weeks and three days pass since Jungeun had last spoken with Jisung; at this point she’s fully accepted the possibility that the boy might never want her in his life again and she’s okay with it…‘Okay’ meaning that she completely hates the idea but fully understands it, she’d expect no less after what happened.

In the past days she had given into the urge of sending Jisung more than a couple of awkward texts, she never knew what to say but always managed to come up with some form of variation of the “Please let’s talk whenever you can/want” premise.

She never gets a reply; the text wouldn’t even be opened.

It is during a day in which Jungeun’s feeling particularly hopeless in which she decides that she has nothing to lose and now it’s the perfect time to send a long ass text basically consisting of “I know I don’t deserve it and you have no reason to, but can we please talk, just once. Hear me out one last time.”

Hours go by before her phone gets a reply, but she ignores it for another hour thinking it’s nothing important, most definitely not Jisung. When she finally checks her phone, she feels adrenaline kick in, almost like a blow to her stomach.

_**Jisung:** Ok_

_**Jisung:** meet me outside my house later today. at 5pm_

She feels relief, hope and fear all at once.

_**Jungeun:** thank u._

* * *

Jungeun feels her knees wobble more and more with each step she takes towards Jisung’s house; she wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly snapped in half or something.

All the emotions make Jungeun almost feels like she’s walking into some sort of warzone in which her purpose is, ironically enough, avoiding a battle. _No matter what you do, don’t hurt the other party. Don’t hurt Jisung, not anymore._

As she approaches Jisung’s house she sees him sitting on the sidewalk across his home. She takes a deep breath and walks towards him.

As she quietly stands by his side, Jisung makes no action to acknowledge her, he just rests his head on his knees, and taps his fingers against his shoe.

“Jisung, hi. I-” Jungeun stops mid-sentence and clears her throat, she then decides to sit next to him before continuing talking.

“I’m sorry,” She says.

The boy looks calm and stiff, barely taking any noticeable breaths, and still failing to acknowledge Jungeun’s presence.

“I know that no matter how many times I say that, it will never make up for I did to you, but I really, truly mean it.”

A few seconds go by.

“Why did you do it?” He speaks for the first time in a very monotonous voice; his cold manner is betrayed by the frown forming on his face.

Jungeun sighs and shakes her head, knowing that no answer will ever be enough for that question, “I guess I just- I wanted to keep talking to you and at the time that seemed like the only way to get close to you, I- Honestly I don’t know. I didn’t really think things through.”

He nods his head softly, still not meeting Jungeun’s eyes.

“What about Sooyoung? Was it a joke for her? For you?”

“God, no,” Jungeun replies in a heartbeat, “No. I’m the one that dragged her into this, she was just helping me, really. Resent me all you want but she-”

Jisung finally shifts his body and faces Jungeun, arching his eyebrows questioningly.

“Not her.”

He says nothing, and eventually his eyes leave Jungeun’s and instead look down to the ground.

“Look,” Jungeun speaks again, “I had to tell you cause I care about you; not even as a crush or anything like that, but as a friend, and as someone that I couldn’t stand to hurt any longer. I really mean it when I say that you’re a great person that deserves so much better than this and I’m really sorry that I didn’t give that to you.”

 “Yeah…Me too,” Is all he says before they fall into complete silence.

Unsure of how long they’re quiet for, Jungeun gathers the courage to speak again, “You know, I didn’t want you finding out any other way; it was better ending it now. I mean, I should have done it way sooner- Actually I’m sorry it ever started.”

Jisung takes a deep sigh, as he runs his hand through his hair. His stare looks pensive, and heavy to hold.

“I-” He starts, but quickly chokes on his words. A few seconds pass till he speaks again, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Jungeun makes a humming noise, understanding his lack of words; she’s been in that position too.

“I get it,” Jisung says, “But not really. Like, the you that stands in front of me right now, I can’t really see it as the same person that has been texting me all this time.”

He shakes his head, mostly to himself, “And not because of your appearance, but because of the lie. And even now that I know you had no ill intentions or anything, and actually meant all of it I still can’t- We can’t go back to the way things were, at least not now.”

Jungeun takes a deep breath, a part of her was expecting those words, “That’s okay, really; I wouldn’t expect us to. I don’t get to be liked like that, I get it. I just…don’t want you to resent me.”

It almost sounds like a plea, and Jungeun doesn’t care.

Jisung looks up to meet Jungeun’s eyes.

“I don’t. I couldn’t,” His words are slow, “I still care about you.”

He lets out a humorless laugh, “I mean, we did bond after all.”

“We did,” Jungeun murmurs.

Soft smiles form for the first time.

Silence falls between the two once again, but this time it feels different; it’s lighter and doesn’t make the air impossible to breathe.

“So,” Jungeun starts hesitantly, “….Friends?”

She feels like a loser as she stretches out her hand towards Jisung.

He laughs, and this time it reaches his eyes, “Sure.”

He grabs Jungeun’s hand firmly, getting rid of her stiffness, “We can go for that.”

She imitates his smile, and finally for the first time in months it doesn’t hide any type of guilt.

* * *

“Well I’m glad you were able to solve things without getting a restraining order!” Jiwoo chirps as she drags Jungeun through the doors of some cute little café at the end of a quiet street.

It is their _fifth_ one that afternoon; somehow Jiwoo had convinced Jungeun into helping her find the perfect spot for a first date.

Jiwoo had been crushing on a girl from her photography class for almost over a year now, Jungeun thought it was a ridiculously long time and would never miss an opportunity to clown her about it. It is only _now_ , after having become somewhat closer with her secret crush, that Jiwoo had finally gathered the courage to ask the girl out and had screamed for an entire week about getting a yes as a response.

Initially Jungeun thought she’d just help her plan a cute idea or something fun to do with the girl, but this is Jiwoo she’s talking about so of course she has to take things to another level.

If the place was cute enough to pass Jiwoo’s standards then they would check out the menu, and if anything sounded interesting, they’d try the cheapest thing in it just to rate the taste. It would get particularly awkward when they’d decide that the place wasn’t good enough as soon as they walked in, cause then they’d have to immediately exit the restaurant makings as little eye contact as possible with the employees, who had already acknowledged them and were ready to lead them to a table.

So far nothing had gotten a perfect score, so they were still in the hunt.

Every time Jungeun complained about being bored or tired Jiwoo would hiss her quiet, “We must find the perfect place for perfect girl Heejin, do you hear me? I will not settle for less.”

This Heejin girl better treat Jiwoo right after all the suffering that their first date has cost Jungeun.

The café they just entered gets Jiwoo-approved and so does the menu, so they end up sitting on a table.

“Listen,” Jungeun says as she flops onto a chair, tired from all the walking around, “The restraining order was a totally realistic option so shut up. But yeah, surprisingly I’m very happy with the way things turned out.”

“Surprisingly? Really…?”

“Well, yeah. I’m really glad that the option of continuing as friends is there.”

“Just friends?”

Jungeun nods, “I’d prefer that, yeah. Crazy, right?”

Jiwoo scoffs, she can’t tell if the other girl is being serious or not, “Sure, _suuuper_ crazy. No one saw that one coming, Jungie!”

“Okay, what are you talking about?” Jungeun crosses her arms, as she looks at Jiwoo through squinted eyes.

“Are you really that oblivious or are you just pretending?”

“Ugh,” Jungeun’s slowly becoming more and more impatient, “Would you explain yourself already?!”

“Do I really have to explain your own feelings to you?”

 _Ah_ , so that’s what this is about; only now Jungeun realizes where this might be going.

She takes a deep breath, “Honestly, that would be very useful, cause my mind is a mess right now.”

Jiwoo pauses for a moment and just stares at her.

“You like Sooyoung,” she then replies matter-of-factly, “It’s crystal clear. How is that confusing?”

Jungeun stiffens after hearing those words out loud for the first time; she doesn’t hate the sound of it.

_She likes Sooyoung._

It’s also the first time she’s fully admitted it to herself, it was always at the back of her mind, she’s sensed the feeling become stronger and bigger with each moment spent with Sooyoung, but she never dared to put it into words, to acknowledge it; that would mean to deal with it and probably act on it…and that’s scary.

At least that’s what used to think. Crushing on Sooyoung felt like a distant, scary thought. Something she would never be prepared to deal with, but right now, as she hears Jiwoo say it, she can’t help the smile that creeps into her face, and the warm feeling that blossoms somewhere deep inside her.

_She likes Sooyoung. She really, really does._

Jungeun hums, “Well yes. I do, I like her but-”

She stops for a second, she really can’t think of anything to say.

“But what?” She hears Jiwoo.

Jungeun doesn’t respond. There’s no _but’s_ anymore.

* * *

Jungeun sits in the living room of the Ha family as she waits for Sooyoung to tidy things up in her room.

“I’m not letting you see my room like that, it’s embarrassing,” Sooyoung had said; Jungeun hadn’t really thought of it as a big deal and insisted that they were close enough to show each other their messy rooms, ‘their natural habitats’ as she had called them, but Sooyoung’s words had been definitive.

For the most part Jungeun just waits silently, not really thinking about anything. Not even about the girl that she currently waits for or the feelings that she has for her, she’s done enough thinking about that for the last few days.

After her chat with Jiwoo suddenly _everything_ about her dynamics with Sooyoung made sense on Jungeun’s head, and she spent entire days after that hyper-fixating on her recently discovered yet long existent crush on the girl…She had a lovely time thinking about it, she really did.

The quietness lasts until a familiar trio sneak up on her to disrupt her peace, and almost make her scream in surprise.

They all giggle at Jungeun’s jitteriness.

Yerim wears a smooth look on her face, and once she notices Jungeun staring directly at her, she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

“So you’re here again,” Yerim speaks, “I see my advice worked, huh?”

Jungeun sits up straighter, _what is she talking about now?_

“Our job here is done,” Chaewon says not discreetly at all, high-fiving Yeojin, who like the other girls looks like she knows _too_ much.

Jungeun snorts, “You did nothing, Chae. Wait- What advice? What job?”

“So, what are you gonna do now?” Yerim completely ignores Jungeun’s words.

“About what?!”

Yeojin makes an ‘ugh’ sound.

Yerim rolls her eyes as if that should be obvious by now, “You and Sooyoung! Are you gonna finally make your move?”

Jungeun can feel her face burning up almost immediately, “T-There is no move to make.”

How is it that everyone around her seems to be aware of her own feelings long before her? Their _hers_!

She tries to sound firm, but the determined looks on the three kids don’t falter, perhaps the stuttering wasn’t the best weapon against them.

“Good. She’s funny too,” Chaewon says, “Perfect for our Sooyoungie!”

If Jungeun wasn’t currently struggling with three cryptid kids trying to expose her feelings for their older sister, she would have smiled at the thought of the older girl getting called ‘Sooyoungie’, it just sounds so _cute_.

Before any of the kids can speak again, Sooyoung comes back from her room and Jungeun has never been more thankful to see her face.

“Do I wanna know why Jungeun looks terrified?” She asks.

“Oh, you definitely wanna know!” Yeojin says with a laugh.

Sooyoung arches a single eyebrow and looks at Jungeun for an explanation.

Everything in Jungeun screams danger and her body acts on its own when it decides to run towards Sooyoung and practically drag her by the hand towards her room, “Eh, too much chatting, let’s just go.”

Sooyoung squints her eyes, not understanding anything about the scene unfolding around her; but she lets it slide, only cause Jungeun’s hand is soft and warm and nice to hold and her cheeks look super cute flushed in that shade of pink.

* * *

Hiding her burning face behind Sooyoung’s pillows seems to not be _that_ useful with helping Jungeun return back to her original color, mainly because it only makes her start focusing too much on how comfortable she is around Sooyoung to the point that she can just launch herself into the other girl’s bed; also, Sooyoung won’t stop eyeing her and being particularly observant which makes Jungeun unable to remain cool and composed.

“What?” Jungeun asks when she can’t take another second of Sooyoung’s eyes on her without feeling like she’s about to physically explode.

Sooyoung smiles, that smile that seems to appear only for Jungeun, and shakes her head dismissively, “Nothing. You just look so…relaxed for once. It's nice to stare at.”

“Ah,” Jungeun says in the most casual way possible, “Yeah, finally talking with Jisung was very freeing.”

“I’m glad.”

Sooyoung moves closer to the bed, now sitting on the edge of it while Jungeun has her back against the headboard.

“So,” Sooyoung speaks again, “Are you guys gonna get together eventually or what?”

Jungeun scrunches her face, “Honestly, it’s not something that I’m thinking about right now.”

Sooyoung looks surprised, “It’s not? I mean he was all you’ve been thinking about all this time.”

“Hey, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking during this time, okay? Not just him.”

“A lot of thinking like what?”

“Stuff,” Jungeun hisses.

Sooyoung laughs, “Am I involved in that _stuff_ , cause otherwise I don’t care.”

Her tone is playful, and she wears a smirk on her face.

Jungeun returns the smirk and rolls her eyes at the traces of the old, annoying and self-absorbed Sooyoung that tends to occasionally pop out every now and then.

She now realizes there’s not really an “old” and “new” Sooyoung, just different sides of the girl that not everyone gets to see, and she now happens to be lucky enough to know more than the playful and (very) annoying one.

It almost feels like a privilege, but Jungeun would _never_ admit that to Sooyoung. Finding the teasing cute, and it making her feel special is a thought for Jungeun and Jungeun only.

“Of course you are,” Jungeun finally replies.

Sooyoung looks taken aback by the answer, but she quickly recovers.

“Hm, I like that,” She nods, “You’re in my thoughts too.”

“I am?” It almost sounds like a squeak, but Jungeun doesn’t care.

“And they’re nice thoughts now,” She whispers it as if it was a secret, which causes both girls to laugh.

Sooyoung moves closer to Jungeun, “I’ve come to really care about you, you know?”

Jungeun feels her face flushing again, this time it even reaches her ears and the pillow previously used to save her from this embarrassment now lays long forgotten on her lap.

This time she doesn’t hate it though, it feels like a rush. A rush that only Sooyoung can give her.

Jungeun opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything, she just nods mutely; her eyes not leaving Sooyoung’s for a second.

“Like, a lot,” Sooyoung continues speaking, and Jungeun is _so_ glad cause her voice is really nice, and she could listen to it for hours, “Too much.”

“How much is too much?” Jungeun finally breaks her silence with not much thinking.

“I could show you.”

Suddenly everything is happening really fast and next thing she knows is Sooyoung is sitting next to her with her face closer than ever before and with apparent plans to get even closer and so instinctively Jungeun closes her eyes and waits. She waits for a demonstration of how much she’s cared for…But nothing comes.

One too many seconds pass, and she feels _nothing_ which is impossible because Sooyoung’s face wasn’t that far away; it shouldn’t be taking this long.

She opens her eyes and it takes her vision a second to get adjusted back to the light cause of how forcefully she was keeping them shut.

Through a dark spot in her eyes she can see Sooyoung softly smiling at her.

She’s still really close, but not enough for their mouths to be touching…Just their noses if she angles her face right.

“You’re cute, Jungeun” Sooyoung says, “So, so, _so_ cute.”

Jungeun’s eyes widen because those were not one, but _three_ so’s and that was _her_ name and now her heart is beating really _really_ fast, and this time Sooyoung doesn’t give her time to brace herself or close her eyes in advance. This time she just goes for it and Jungeun’s heart feels like it might explode, and she probably needs to get her blood pressure taken cause _oh wow._

Their lips are touching and Jungeun has no idea what to do with her hands which leaves her arms just awkwardly lingering on her side, she starts to run out of breath but Sooyoung’s lips are so incredibly soft and who needs air anyway.

The soft tickle of lips and cheeks brushing against each other makes Jungeun feel funny and steals a laugh from her. Her body, unlike her mind, knows what to do and almost by nature her arms finally do something as she covers Sooyoung’s cheeks with her hands while their lip parts.

“You’re so annoying,” Sooyoung speaks sweetly, traces of Jungeun still in her mouth, “Why are you laughing.”

That only reinforces Jungeun’s laughter, causing Sooyoung to prod her in the shoulder.

“Ugh,” Sooyoung says, “You’re lucky I like you.”

Jungeun can literally feel a wave of electricity through her body when she hears those words.

“How much?” She asks, face looking smug, knowing what kinda response she’s about to prompt in Sooyoung.

Their lips meet again, and it is even better than the first time. It’s like with each kiss Jungeun can understand the reason behind all those clichés of fireworks and butterflies and the warm feeling that the sparks lighting everything inside of her bring.

As they part once again, Sooyoung catches her breath for a moment before speaking.

“That, and more.”

Jungeun has never seen eyes look as warm as Sooyoung’s currently do. The type of warmth that no matter how close you get to, it never burns. The type that you can never get enough of no matter how much you have; and she wants it all.

That’s how Jungeun knows that she doesn’t want it to be only Sooyoung’s. She wants it to be _theirs_.

She wants there to be a _them._

Her own stare reflects Sooyoung’s, and as she holds onto those warm, soft and secure eyes she’s finally sure that she’s done things right for once, that she has one great and perfect thing all to herself and she can say it proudly.

Sooyoung is her perfect thing.

Sooyoung is hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thank you so much to everyone that read this all the way through! i hope everyone enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it
> 
> ah also, since it is already december, happy holidays to everyone, and yeah till next time (hopefully) goodbye lipves nation! ~ 
> 
> twt: @vousmevoyves

**Author's Note:**

> twt @vousmevoyves


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